Quotes About Resilience

Brother, even when you're on the track you aren't running on the track, don't you know that yet?

Fear burned through him, like a flame. Fear coursed through him, like icy water. He threw his head back and raised his dagger, to strike -- and cried out wordlessly, as if the great cry could gather all his fear together and set its swelling course behind him, to add it to his strength.

She sat with her back to her fear, as to the wind and waves. Fear blew and sprayed at her back but she dared not turn around to face it.

Bullet shrugged. She was right, it would just be another box. It was going to be just another box for him, too, but he'd figured it out. You didn't get out of one box without getting into another, and you didn't get out of one box without getting into another, and you didn't get out without it costing you. For himself, he was just looking for a box that fit him. For her - what he was hoping to do was just loosen a board or two for her. It was up to her what she did about that.

At Beriel's silence she turned around -- and fury crashed against her like a wave thrown by a storm against the rocky coast.

If I was sure, I'd say. For your Momma, maybe. For all of us, maybe, but I don't think so. I think, maybe, it's reaching out for that school. Somehow. I'm not saying that's what you thought you were doing or what you even wanted to do. But it's how it turned out. And I'm sorry, the way it turned out. Because somebody's slapped your hand back good and hard. But I don't want you to stop reaching, just because it didn't come out the way it should have.

I could never do what you did, they said, to which Fredle responded, You'd be surprised at what you can do, if you need to, if you have to, if you really want to.

If the Damall had caught Griff taking wine and salt, Griff would have begged forgiveness. Griff would have been afraid and sorry and promised never to do it again. When Griff was afraid he would promise. Later, he might take the wine and salt again, and be afraid again, and promise again, and break the promise again, over and over again. Griff had the bending strength of a sapling.

Orien," Birle protested again. "You can stay if you must." Orien's cheeks were hollow with hunger and he had little strength for anger. "But I wish you'd come. I don't know how long it would be before I could come back for you." So she followed him, since he would return for her.

What has no shadow has no strength to live.

The world is a raving idiot, and no man can kill it: though I'll do my best.

Even your joy is like a flame coming off of sadness

Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor teaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup.

If you don't like it, alter it. If you can't alter it, put up with it.

Having suffered so much, the capacity for suffering had to some extent left him.

She did not look her best: so thin, so large-nosed, with that pink-and-white checked duster tied round her head. She felt her disadvantage. But she had had a good deal of suffering and sorrow, she did not mind any more.

A bird doesn't feel sorry for itself in the winter.

Keep going until something stops you, then keep going.

Tenacity is not stubbornness elevated to the level of stupidity. It is commitment to the result regardless of what has to be endured along the way.

Work through the constant challenge of tough situations that knock you down. Then get up. If you get knocked down again, get up. If you get knocked down again, get up again. Occasionally you may slow down, but don't stop.

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.

There is nothing to save, now all is lost, but a tiny core of stillness in the heart like the eye of a violet.

When the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only in appearance. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst.

She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments!